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Grand Theft Auto 4 producer: Game took around US$ 100 million to make

Posted Apr 27, 2008 at 5:47PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: PS3, Xbox 360 Tags: Rockstar North, Sega, Silicon Knights

100 million dollar man? - Image 1

We already expect Rockstar North to hit it big with Grand Theft Auto 4 (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3), but it's not a well known fact how much money it cost developing the behemoth of open-world games across three and a half years. Interesting enough, GTA 4 could very well be the most expensive video game to make in history.

Leslie Benzies, Rockstar North president and producer of Grand Theft Auto 4, reportedly made a wild guess saying it took around US$ 100 million to build the next-gen Liberty City. Â“It's like making a theatre production, a few movies and an album all to fit into one package," he said.

Some 1,000 people were allegedly involved in Grand Theft Auto 4's production, with 220 settled in Rockstar North's Scotland HQ. It didn't take less than 100,000 photographs of New York just to capture the rain's intensity, a thousand pages of script served as the game's backbone, and countless 12-hour days at work were spent by key members.

If it is true that U$ 100 million were spent, Rockstar could safely nudge Silicon Knights' Too Human and Sega's Shenmue off stage since both are known to have fallen a few million short of a hundred. Whether or not GTA 4 sets records, Rockstar can still live off the US$ 50 million Microsoft paid for exclusive DLC and the piles of money its upcoming surefire hit will generate.

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no wonder the game was limited to fit on a hd-dvd

pisses me off think about how much better a 10/10 game coulda been with 3x the space AND IT STILL RUNS BETTER ON THE PS3 i honestly think microsoft must be scared *****less of the ps3 in order to spend so much money to ensure people buy gta for 360 rather than ps3 (but with free online i dunno how that will turn out).............. FIRST FANBOY OF THE DAYY WOOOOTTT!!!

# uhm — Mic2000 2008-04-27 20:26

And your point of life is what?

# This is why I hate PS3 Fanboys — Sir Pwn4lot 2008-04-27 20:47

First of all, the 360 uses DL-DVD not HD-DVD.

Second, I somewhat agree with your comment on how the 360 not using blu-ray is a bad thing. It limits developers and makes games less expansive. Suffice to say I still much prefer my 360 to my PS3 and Wii, but maybe not the wii and PS3 combined.

Another thing, GTA4 looks slightly better on the 360. It has been reported by Rockstar reps that the PS3 will have warmer colors while the 360's will be more vibrant.

Please grow a pair and realise that fanboys suck! I am a fanboy, a fanboy of games! W00T!

# This means the DLC must be huge! — Sir Pwn4lot 2008-04-27 20:49

If the whole of GTA IV cost $100m, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that $50m is half of that.

This is the first time I actually consider the rumors about the 360 DLC to be another city not just possible, but probable.

Good move Microsoft, this is one of the many reasons I got it for my 360, not my PS3.

# big ups 2 the h8rs — death 2008-04-27 21:16

when i said it runs better on ps3 i was refering to the reported "hiccups" and "frame rate issues" on the 360 (ign also said it looks better on ps3 because of this) . but truth b told i got nothing against 360 i just h8 microsoft for what their doin

and @ Mic2000 "and your point IN life is what? is most likely what you were trying to say; im sorry but i don't speak idiot fluently. If that is the case them my point in life is to exist, breath and perhaps pollute the gene pool a little with my sea-men

# there are no new cities — death 2008-04-27 21:21

just missions

# LMAO — death 2008-04-27 21:45

On 18 September 2007, Jack Thompson filed a document[73] with a federal court in Florida that claims that the assassination target of a mission in GTA IV is a lawyer character based upon himself. When the main protagonist enters his office and pulls a gun on him, the lawyer yells "Guns don't kill people! Video games do!" Thompson has threatened that unless the similarities to himself are removed from the game he will "take necessary and proper means to stop release of the game

from wikipedia

# DLC vs Blu Ray — SonnySoul 2008-04-27 23:14

Sorry guys, but I agree with Death on this one.

For Microsoft to pay US$ 50M for downloadable content shows that they really are afraid of the PS3's capabilities.

Just because X-Box 360 will have exclusive downloadable content, what's to say PS3 won't get additional content on disc in the future?

I don't like the idea of additional content, it takes the developers away from creating the next title in the series, something they should be fully focused on.

And Death is correct in saying that the game would have been much better on Blu Ray, had it not been released on DVD.

Now I'm not a fanboy, I have all 3 of the next gen consoles, but you have to admit that had the game been packed into 50GB, there would have been so much more to it.

Hopefully, Microsoft will jump on the Blu Ray band waggon and the next GTA will take full advantage of Blu Ray.

P.S. I've got it on order on the PS3. X-Box Live is great, but the price isn't. PSN is free, therefore, many more friends on there to play GTA multiplayer with!

GTA Rocks(tar)!

# Microsoft Knows Their Limited — HMD 2008-04-28 00:25

I agree with SonySoul.

Microsoft is scared of th PS3 capabilites no doubt. Yeah Xbox online community is better, but it aint free like PSN.

Also going forward if games want to become better the developers are going to need more space and Blu-Ray is said to become industry standard.

So you know all you Xbox360 peeps will need to purchase yet another console just to catch up with technology. YOU SHOULDA BROUGHT PS3 + GOT THE FULL PACKAGE @ ONE TIME.

Hola

# all i know is — Quixand 2008-04-28 02:24

i'm freakin pissed off about this game!!! not because of the game itself but because of playasia.com!!!! i've had my pre-order for months, other people are already getting their copies here in australia.. and just now i checked if whether they have sent my copies (for myself and some buddies who are sharing the shipping cost) and it says on the freakin website "in stock May 2, 2008" and the shipment status has been replaced from "to be shipped on or before April 29, 2008" to "to be released May 2, 2008".

fhack it!!!!! and to think that i've already told everybody that i won't be working this coming thursday and friday... chet!!!! this has been one bad day!!!

# its more money — The Obsidian 2008-04-28 03:46

than was put into ur precious Halo3 eh? oh and ur precious Microsofrt really is a huge greedy beast arent they? the fact that they paid 50 mill just to get exclusive s*** is a little bit TOO much proof....no nintendo can make an unbeleviblely amazing game without spending so much on one game theyres years of proof too actually and even the past two years and now actually XD oh and xbox sucks go wii

# the only loser i see is you m sense — demondirk 2008-04-28 04:11

well any ways can't wait too play this game on tuesday

# ... — Silver-Tiger 2008-04-28 06:22

@ MCS: and what exactly has the price to do with Wii being the big loser?

# The beauty is... — Pimptimus_Prime 2008-04-28 08:45

Microsoft payed $50 million for "Exclusive" downloadable content, not "All" downloadable content.

That means they are going to get exclusive add-on missions for Liberty City that the PS3 won't see, but that there IS going to be downloadable content that is shared by both sytems. They payed that money to guarantee there would be something (Mostly rumors involving them having the ONLY DLC) that the PS3 couldn't offer.

MAN! I can't wait to play.

# so i was wrong — na2rul 2008-04-28 13:46

the game is not partially sliced........its cut in half............

ps3 owners get half of what they couldve got, 360 owners pay 1 and a half times more than normal games.

sorry, i couldnt help but express my concern over MS's overrated DLC delivery, they were the 1st to start this trend. but i also believe this is to compensate for dvd constrainst.

at least the 3rd installment should be given a chance to expand in content with bluray.

# to Sir Pwn4lot — TheDude 2008-04-28 14:04

You should have looked around a little before stating that GTAIV looks slighty better on 360 because every review so far states that the PS3 is the better looking version. Less aliasing, less pop-in, and more stable frame rate are some of the things being mentioned. I'm not a fanboy so don't flame, I'm actually getting the 360 version but you shouldn't say something that isn't true just because you like one sytem better than the other.

# DLC — HMD 2008-04-28 19:35

DLC is for both consoles, but some extra exclusive DLC content will be for xbox.

Load of non-sense really, if it had been made for blu-ray disk the game would have been so much better and bigger.

Even Rockstar themselves said that building for DVD made the game limited (that's not an exact quote, just summerising).

But still I think online for PS3 is going to be a lot more live than Xbox, cuz it free - non of this paying for your internet rubbish. Thats just a straight bump.

Can't wait to play it today though.

EVERYONE SIGNED UP FOR GTA SOCIAL CLUB?

# First of all... — ultracombo 2008-05-04 19:43

the exclusive DLC will be about 20% extra game content, which is a lot.

Second of all, the PS3 had developement problems with the game too. DVD isn't too bad because games can be compressed, though it probably took away something from the game.

Third of all, PSN isn't really better than Xbox Live. Sure it's free, but ( I'm not sure of this) Xbox Live has better maintenance.

Also, the graphics and framerate are the same on both consoles. nothing significant between each console. I prefer the Xbox 360 version of the copy because of Xbox Live, DLC, and controls ( Hate the PS3 controls). I'm not trying to be like a fanboy, I'm just saying I prefer the 360. I wouldn't mind playing on the PS3, except for the controls.

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Grand Theft Auto 4 producer: Game took around US$ 100 million to make

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